Sunday Saga: The Rich and Athletic Mess With NBC's Biggest Night

If Football goes away, Fox, already in good stead with males, could win the evening

By By Steve McClellan

The NationalFootball League is Sunday Night's X Factor.

Withspeculation now surfacing of a shortened season, the ongoing lockout andprotracted legal jousting between the owners and the players has got to havethe executives at NBC Universal reaching for the Maalox (and probably somethingstronger) right about now.

The stakes arehuge. Advertisers spend more on Sunday nights than any night of the week. Atleast they did last year with football in the mix-nearly $3 billion accordingto research firm Kantar Media. And there's more on the line for NBC going intothis NFL season, given that it is scheduled to air the Super Bowl Feb. 5, 2012.

NBC has hadlittle to brag about in primetime for years, with the NFL being an exception.Sunday nights has been the brightest spot for the network since it beganprogramming NFL coverage there five seasons ago.

Football haslet the network dominate Sundays much the way American Idol has ruled Tuesdays or Wednesdays in years past.

In fact, theWednesday edition of Idol and Sunday Night Football delivered the twobiggest audiences among regularly scheduled programs in the 2010-11 season,according to Nielsen. Almost 24 million viewers tuned in weekly to Idol Wednesday while about 21 millionviewers watched the Sunday primetime game. And both shows delivered about thesame number of adults 18-49-just under 10.5 million each. In today's primetimeuniverse, that's huge-those two series were the only ones to consistentlydeliver an 18-49 audience of 10 million or more.

Of courseanything is possible, and maybe the billionaires who own the teams will come toterms with the millionaire athletes who actually provide the weeklyentertainment. So far, NBC hasn't divulged exact contingency plans, althoughwhen the network unveiled its new lineup three weeks ago, NBCU EntertainmentChairman Robert Greenblatt said the network was developing replacementprogramming in case it is needed. He did not provide much in the way ofspecifics, other than to say that "live event reality type shows" would fillany void.

But iffootball goes away, whatever NBC does just won't be the same audience-wise,buyers believe. And Fox would likely be a big benefactor with its youngmale-skewing lineup of animated comedies. "NFL viewers aren't going to go watchDesperate Housewives or The Good Wife," says Brad Adgate,SVP/director of research at Horizon Media. And even against the NFL, he says,Fox is in a good position with its young male audience of cartoon watchers thatadvertisers pay a premium to reach because they're lighter viewers of broadcastprimetime TV. So it appears that Fox's hand can only strengthen if football iscurtailed.

In addition toSunday fixtures The Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad, Fox is adding the new Allen Gregory (from cocreator Jonah Hill, about a 7-year-old who isabout to leave the sheltered existence of home schooling to attend elementaryschool with kids his own age to the 8 to 10 animated comedy block, while The OT returns to lead off the night.

Of course Fox has its own,albeit smaller potential NFL Sunday night issue. Thenetwork's post-game show, TheOT, leads off its primetime schedule. While the show doesn't comeclose to the numbers generated by the primetime game, it hasbeen Fox's highest rated show of the night. Replacement programming, ifneeded, will be animation repeats.

Meanwhile,both ABC and CBS made big plays to go after the female audience on Sundaynights. ABC revamped half its schedule, utilizing both a new paranormal show inOnce Upon a Time and a Mad Men-inspired â€˜60s period drama, Pan Am. Buyers attending the network'supfront presentation said ABC appears to be making an assertive bid to ramp upits competitiveness on a night where it has been, as one executive put it, "asignificant force," since DesperateHousewives premiered some seven seasons ago. That show has anchored ABC'sSunday night ever since and helped to nurture other hits such as Grey's Anatomy, now on Thursdays.

But as buyershave noted, Housewives has declinedsharply. During the 2010-11 season, it drew about 10 million viewers overalland a little over 4 million adults 18-49, down more than two million in viewersand one million in the demographic compared to the previous season. Inhead-to-head competition during the just-ended regular season, CBS's realityshow Undercover Boss outdrew Housewives by about 1 million viewersand almost matched its 18-49 audience. Just three years ago, Housewives drew 17 million-plus viewersand 8.5 million viewers 18-49.

With Housewives losing steam fast, CBS ismoving one of its best-performing new shows, the time period winning Tuesdaynight legal drama The Good Wife, togo head-to-head against Housewivesnext fall. In its first year, Good Wifedrew 11.1 million viewers, including 2.7 million 18-49. "Outside of football,that's the battle to watch next fall," says the top buyer at one major agency.

Bottom line,if the NFL's civil war ends soon, NBC retains control of the night, even if theseason is curtailed slightly. If football disappears for the season, Fox wouldbe a big gainer and might win the night if it can lure enough of those 14million male NBC viewers in search of alternate-NFL programming.